


Icarus et Dea Tacita

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) Needs a Hug, Klance if you squint, Male-Female Friendship, Narti Lives, Possibly Pre-Slash, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 04 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 04:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: She's drenched in blood; she's literally cut open, how-? Keith doesn't know, and the closer he is to her the more certain he becomes that he's seen her before, that this is one of Lotor's generals, but he knows he's going to try to save her.No soldier or civilian left behind.Shiro's taught him so much, but he learned that one from Pidge and Lance and Hunk.While on a mission for the Blade, Keith finds a dying Narti and saves her life. Friendship ensues.





	Icarus et Dea Tacita

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! And welcome to my angst-ridden friendship-centric fix-it follow up to season 4! I spent most of last weekend backstage at the theatre so this was mostly written on my phone in the dark and I preemptively apologize for any weird typos. 
> 
> Warnings for mentions of blood, violence and potential death (although this is a Save Narti fix-it she does still almost die and Keith is still Keith at Naxzela). Additionally Keith's mental health and self esteem are not super good and he is not a reliable narrator or a healthy human in this story. Please read with your own self-care in mind!

**Icarus et Dea Tacita**

There's a strange clarity to dying, Narti thinks as the steel cuts deep and the blood seeps, trickles, pours out. It's quiet. It hasn't been quiet in her head for a long time. Her skull feels bigger than it did before. Like it's been full of crinkling, rasping packing material for years and years and now...it's all been ripped out, all at once. She's floating.

The floor is bucking beneath her under the bombardment but she only half feels it. Parts of her are going numb off and on. Her nerves are confused, synapses firing off and on as her brain struggles to rearrange itself as her blood sluggishly crawls out of her body.

Kova is beside her, she thinks, but she can't tell the way she usually can. Kova feels...far away. Outside of herself.

Kova's never felt so far away and her head has never felt so quiet and while she's sure Lotor's sword should have hurt, she's mostly occupied with how her head doesn't ache anymore. Something's been unlocked, unwound in her skull and she can hear herself think again.

She drifts in the thunder of cannons and thinks her own thoughts and floats in darkness.

...

Keith isn't sure what he's looking for here, honestly. The place is wrecked; the Empire really did a number on it...whatever it was. He was sent here to track an unusual quintessence signature but he's halfway sure Kolivan made the data up just to give him a softball first solo mission. The patronizing attitude grates - Keith's survived plenty all alone. He doesn't need made-up busywork, he can do real work alone. He knows he can.

He's always been better at working alone than working with a team anyway.

(A team - something twists deep in his chest or maybe his stomach, somewhere close to his core, something that longs for a Red Lion and home-cooked food and glinting glasses and laughing blue eyes and a hug from the closest thing he's ever had to a family.)

Keith throttles whatever it is down.

Hasn't he learned already? He's Keith Kogane, he doesn't get to keep nice things. He just breaks them on accident and never knows how to fit the pieces back together.

("Don't give that one anything fragile, he'll just break it again.")

Keith resists the urge to kick a wall. This place is a bust. Whoever was here took everything that might have meant something with them and the computer terminals are fried from the Imperial bombardment.

He's seconds away from radioing his Blade contact to request a pickup when he hears...a meow?

He glances up and finds himself practically eye to eye with...a cat?

He doesn't yelp and jump backwards because he's a Blade of Marmora initiate and a former paladin (failed, he's a failed paladin just like he's a failed pilot, let's be honest) and he's tougher than that...mostly.

The cat doesn't look much like a cat in the traditional sense. Its markings are too bright and too...not cat-colored. (Keith has never been great with words; they tend to slide away when he needs them most.)

The artificial gravity is out of whack in this extraterrestrial wreck, so Keith's been relying on his suit's magnetized boots to keep from getting tossed into walls whenever the gravity field fluctuates. The cat doesn't have the benefit of a Blade suit and is standing on a wall, perpendicular to Keith's face like something out of a surrealist painting.

The cat meows again. Good to know some things don't change across space andtime.

"What do you want?" Keith asks. That's not even half of the questions bubbling up in the back of his mind, waiting to be asked, but it's the one that slips out.

The cat flicks its tail at him and walks away, deigning to mew imperiously over its shoulder when Keith doesn't immediately follow.

Oh yeah, follow the mysterious space cat that by all rights really should be dead; that sounds like a great idea.

Keith follows the space cat.

It's the most interesting thing that's happened this whole mission. And frankly, considering the sheer improbability of a cat, even a space cat, surviving this implies that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't a made-up baby mission thrown his way to keep him busy.

(It was probably supposed to be, they probably didn't have space cats in mind when they handed this off to Keith.)

The cat turns a corner. The gravity must be on the fritz because the cat drops onto the floor. It doesn't break stride.

            And then they're in a new space and there's a body on the floor lying in a puddle of blood.

The cat gives an imperious cry, swatting Keith with its tail before bounding away. Keith tries to follow the cat with his eyes, but it's gone and he's just left with a body...a body that might not be all the way dead, he realizes as he sees the chest inflate microscopically.

Shit.

Not dead.

ShitshitshitSHIT

Keith jogs to the prone figure's side. She - he thinks they're a she? – is lying in a heap and she's Galra or at least part. She has a tail like Regris did, he realizes in a vague, distant way. Her blood is slick feels almost cold against his hands, filtered through the material of his suit.

Looking at her wounds, he doesn't know how she's still breathing. He'd say her blue-grey-purple skin is pale but he has no idea what color it should be. She's drenched in blood; she's literally cut open, how-? Keith doesn't know, and the closer he is to her the more certain he becomes that he's seen her before, that this is one of Lotor's generals, but he knows he's going to try to save her.

No soldier or civilian left behind.

Shiro's taught him so much, but he learned that one from Pidge and Lance and Hunk.

He thumbs his radio (it's called a communicator or transponder or something with too many syllables here in space, but he calls it a radio). "I've got a survivor, I'm going to need backup."

...

Kova watches the Red Paladin (he's not wearing red, but Kova knows because Haggar knows) call for medical support.

It's a lot of work, reorganizing thoughts. Keeping things from Haggar is a chore, especially these days when years of quintessence exposure have twined them together so inextricably. Kova knows he can't hide everything, but if he just slides his memories a certain way...he can save her.

He can save his Narti.

It was hard hiding his conversation with Lotor from both his Narti and Haggar. (Kova feels like a membrane sometimes, like a porous surface for other people to move through)

But Lotor said this was the only way to free her, to save Kova’s Narti. They had to cut out the cancer, to slice clean through all the threads Haggar had pulled through her, sewing the two of them together with sharp stabbing needles and cruel, twisting thread.

"Kova, listen to me. There is enough quintessence stored in her body from all of that witch's meddling to keep her alive for two days if I sever the connection correctly. It will hurt. She might die, but she'll be free. Do you understand? I need to keep Haggar out of things. I need Narti to be free. Will you allow me to do this?"

Yes.

Kova would help Lotor save his Narti. He would trust.

And now the Blade of Marmora and the Red Paladin were here to save her.

Kova lets the memory slide and fall away where Haggar can't touch it. And with a flick of his tail he's gone. He'll sleep for a while in one of the escape pods. Haggar will send someone for him eventually.

There is a hole in him where the connection to his Narti used to be.

He will miss her.

…

Narti wakes up and she is not dying but the inside of her head is still soft and smooth and quiet. And it is dark.

She jerks, her whole body shivering with sudden tension. She's searching for Kova, for their link. The whispers are gone, but they took Kova with them when they left.

She thrashes, body seized with sudden, overwhelming fear-panic-fury. She aches all over in a dull, throb-throb-throb way. But the pain is a basso-profundo rumble rather than a high-pitched squeal. It's easy to push aside.

“Hey, can you hear me?"

A voice. Young. Male maybe. Narti isn't sure. Narti isn't sure of much right now. The world is a spinning, dark void and she doesn't know which way is up. She hasn't had to live without Kova's eyes for so long.

She lashes her tail in the direction of the voice but the gesture is weak and ineffectual.

"Hey, try to relax, you were in really bad shape."

            The voice is trying to be reassuring but Narti's blood is singing in her veins and it's so dark without Kova. Suddenly the emptiness in her head isn't comforting, it's a screaming void. It's her own thoughts too loud, too loud, too LOUD. She swings her tail again and the voice must have tried to block the strike, because her tail wraps around a slim, lean forearm and her empty-loud-empty head is filled up with new thoughts.

(It's so easy to fall into someone's mind now that the shrieking whispers are gone - like she's been trying to reach through mud all this time and suddenly her hand is falling through water instead.)

It's strange seeing things with his eyes, even memories. (The voice is a he, she knows that now, he's a he and he's Keith-Paladin-Blade-Galra-Human-Kogane-CADET KOGANE-Problem Child-Basket Case-Leader NO-RedRedRED-KEITH-Mullet-Buddy-Loner-Keithy Boy-Keith.) His head is a firestorm and he sees different colors than Kova did.

"GET OUT" his voice is a rock dropped into a still pool in an empty cave, a small thought-sound turned into an echoing roar as it bounces between their heads.

She jerks away. His mind falls away so...easily. Water where there was mud.

She remembers being very young, her brain getting stuck in other people's thoughts. Like her body was coated in glue and their images and ideas were pieces of dust and dirt and garbage. It had frightened people. She could make them do things without even realizing it. She could absorb their secrets, eat up their hidden little truths and she couldn't _make it stop_.

They'd handed her over to the Druids easily enough in the end. No one wants a child, not even a full Galra child, to know all their hidden hurts and secret sins.

(She remembers meeting Lotor. She remembers a clever boy who would be king, who wasn't afraid of her. Who wasn't afraid of anything.)

"Who are you?" The new voice, the Keith-voice.

Narti does not speak the way most Galra do. She cannot. But now that she knows where he is she can reach for him with the very tip of her tail.

"Hey," he growls, "what're you doing?"

She brushes the tip of her tail over the back of his hand.

<Narti> She projects at him. It's so easy now that her head is quiet again; thoughts slip through with that single word - memories.

Ezor sing-songing "Naaaarti," at her as the younger woman bounces on her toes.

"Narti," a heavy hand on her Kova-free shoulder as her name rumbles through Zethrid's powerful chest.

"Narti-" a brusque command, a clipped accent, a gesture of respect from a Prince.

"Narti," a tiny almost-smile turning up the corners of Acxa's serious mouth.

Narti.

"Huh," a soft exhalation from the stranger. "Is that...how you talk?"

Narti doesn't like sending over words like this, it's sloppy and inexact and other things always slip through. But she's lying on what feels like a hospital bed. The room smells like disinfectant. The sheets crinkle. It's cold in the way medical suites almost always are. She's not sure if nodding is a good idea. The basso-profundo ache in her body has some high, sharp notes now.

<yes> she sends, resting the very tip of her tail on a thin wrist, curling it around a knob of bone momentarily.

"...Okay." He isn't completely comfortable with it, she can tell from the shiver in his voice, but he doesn't pull away from her. Instead, thought-images, blocky and rough and slow slide her way.

<am. Keith.> the words are stilted and uneasy but the name is accompanied by a soft flurry of sensation. Desert wind, the sting of sand, the feeling of flying, not just the literal sensations but the stomach-swooping JOY of leaving the ground, of _taking flight_ like an act of thievery, a stolen second of lift-off, of lightness and liberty.

'Keith' means or is meant for flying and fighting.

<where?> she asks, mostly in a gentle burst of inquisitiveness instead of an actual word. Thinking in words is hard sometimes when you don't use them the same way other people do.

Keith is still uncomfortable with speaking mind to mind, she can feel it in the way his mind shivers and snaps like a sheet of flame. But he doesn't pull away.

"I can't say. You're one of Lotor's people."

<not anymore> She's getting tired. Thinking in only words is hard. Not falling into Keith's mind is hard. She could simply take what she wants to know, but...she isn't going to.

She pushes the memory of her almost-death his way. She thinks she's missing pieces of her memory now that she examines it. There are parts of the past where the whispers drown out everything else and it all goes grey and fuzzy. She can't remember where she was when Lotor cut her open, cut her loose. She doesn't know what they were doing or why they were there. The past...however long is a staticky smear punctuated with strange fragments of time with Acxa, Zethrid, and Ezor that don't feel like they line up with anything.

Keith sucks in a tight breath next to her at her memory of the whispers, loud, rasping like claws on steel, rising to a furious pitch. Of Lotor whirling on her, his whole body humming with the strain as a blade slid into her skin.

"I still can't tell you," Keith admits, "but...I'm sorry."

She squeezes his wrist with her tail. She understands. But now her head is aching like an over-used muscle. It's a good pain, though. Clean.

<sleep now> she sends to him before pulling her tail away and tucking it beside her.

"Yeah, okay. Sleep well, I guess."

...

Keith doesn't know what to do and doesn't know whom to ask. Kolivan will just want to interrogate her. Shiro would know what to do, maybe. Or Lance. Shiro always seems to know what to do. And Lance was always the one to pick up the pieces whenever Keith fucked everything up (again) while Shiro was gone.

Lance understands people.

Keith could call them. Check in. See how the team's doing. He hasn't been very good at keeping in contact, he knows. But there's a tight feeling in his chest like a string dragging his heart backwards, a clothesline biting into a vital organ.

He wants to call but he knows he won't.

His contact, a Blade he barely knows named Patra glances at him sidelong when he enters the ship's cockpit.

"How's she doing?" Patra reminds Keith oddly of Rolo, everything she says tends to come out in a loose drawl. Her skin is grey-purple with twin crests of magenta fur arcing from her eyebrows up the upper edge of her cat or maybe bat-like ears. She reminds him a little of a hyena with her stocky build, square jaw and slightly darker purple spots scattered through her mane of hair. The first thing she said to him after they were introduced was a lazy "So you're the reason I'm not the shortest around here anymore."

Keith can't really get a read on what she thinks of him, or what she thinks of anything else for that matter. She tends to regard most of the world with the same heavy-lidded, half-amused, half-bored stare.

But when he brought Narti to her she'd positively flown into action. Her heavy-boned square hands turning light and graceful as she tended to the other woman's wounds, her dark orange-gold eyes suddenly bright and canny.

"She said anything yet?"

"No, I don't think she can."

"Mrhrm," Patra grumble-purrs contemplatively at him, "I thought she might not. Whoever her non-Galra ancestor was, I don't think their species has fully developed vocal chords."

Keith shoots her a confused look and she shrugs, "Came up on the scan."

Keith is pretty sure Patra is a more talented and observant medical officer than she wants to let on.

"She's telepathic," Keith offers.

"Hmm?" Patra looks intrigued, almost against her will, one ear tilting curiously toward him, the rest of her body still slouching easily in her command chair, "Touch telepathy? Or just..." a languid hand wave, "regular old psychic powers?"

"Touch," Keith answers.

Patra smirks at him, "Good. Psychic powers is typically Druid shit" (Keith is very glad Pidge and Hunk modified his universal translator so alien curse words are translated into their English equivalent. Accidentally misreading a situation because of mysterious alien profanity is The Worst) "touch telepathy's mostly just regular evolution."

Keith doesn't know if he should trust Patra, but his options are a little thin on the ground here. "She's one of Lotor's generals. I think the Druids have been screwing with her head."

One of Patra's ears twitch, "Huh."

"Lotor turned on her, left her for dead."

"Domestic strife in the Galra Empire?" Patra drawls thoughtfully, "Haggar's getting sloppy if Lotor can spot her meddling."

"Or Lotor's getting smart," Keith offers cynically.

"At least we know he's got something to do with the quintessence now."

Keith nods absently. "What are we going to do with her?"

Patra shrugs, "Heal her up."

Keith feels his face constricting, his 'broody emo pout' a voice that sounds a lot like Pidge's teasing tone reminds him from somewhere in the back of his mind. "Kolivan is going to treat her like a prisoner."

"Kolivan can -" Patra then describes what Keith can only assume is a physiologically improbable act beyond the power of Pidge and Hunk's profanity translator.

Keith blinks at her, impressed.

She crooks a lazy sharp-toothed grin, "She's my patient until I say she isn't and my patients are my jurisdiction."

A tiny smile breaks through Keith's scowl. Patra might not be so bad.

...

Narti isn't sure what the Blade of Marmora is, but they don't seem to trust her and she doesn't blame them. They're all Galra or part-Galra, judging by their scents but from what she's gathered they're some kind of anti-Imperial para-military secret society. Living among them she has the strangest feeling of coming home to an alternate reality.

The only people to talk to her regularly are the young one, Keith, the doctor, Patra, and the leader, Kolivan. All the others keep their distance. She can hear ripples of whispers rising and falling in her wake every time she walks through public spaces, her hand tucked in the crook of Keith or Patra's arm.

(She misses having Kova's eyes, the world feels both too much and too little without her companion to filter it).

She likes Patra; she's quiet like Acxa, playful like Ezor and strong like Zethrid but different enough that being with her is comforting, not painful. Patra's hands are broad, scarred and calloused with blunt fingers. Her claws are manicured, though. Clean and trim, an unexpected vanity. She's a good doctor and a bad soldier, a solid brawler but undisciplined. Narti can understand that.

But Narti thinks Keith might be her favorite. His mind's a jagged jumble of sense memory and impulse. His emotions explode like fireworks behind her eyes when he tries to speak mind to mind. He reminds her of Acxa sometimes. A warrior who feels too much, a soft heart buried deep like magma beneath tectonic plates of armor.

Such a vast capacity for loyalty with no expectation of it ever being returned.

(Narti wants to find whoever broke this boy and break them piece by piece.)

Reaching into Keith's mind is like plunging a hand in a box of smooth stones, feeling each pebble roll over the back of her hands, the knobby mass of it cool under her palms. It's fascinating in its variety and soothing in its texture.

Sometimes it's like reaching into a box of wet pebbles though; dense, slimy, heavy. She thinks this is when Keith is sad. The memories are well guarded, but slivers sneak through. Robotic lions (RedRedRED), warm hugs (yellow and Purple-Grey-Black), sharp quips and a sharper smile (green), bad jokes and an outrageous mustache (orange), a fierce kind of faith (pink), laughing blue eyes (BlueRedBlue). She's learning so many colors from him.

He's hungry for something he can't have, she thinks.

...

Narti sleeps a great deal now. Patra says it is part of the healing process. Narti thinks some of it might be not having anything to do. She misses standing at Lotor's side. She barely remembers standing at Lotor's side.

But there's a commotion outside her door and it’s pulling her slowly from the gauzy grey of her dreams back into her new, dark world.

"She belongs in a cell!"

"Space her!"

"What're you doing defending her?"

"You a traitor, runt?"

And then there's Keith's voice, a low snarl, "Back away from the door."

"What're you going to do? Get your robot lion to eat us up?"

"Wait, you don't have one anymore."

"Can't believe we're stuck with Voltron's leftovers"

"Well they don't want a runty traitor, do they?"

"Get away from the door, whelp."

"Yeah, Lotor's bitch belongs in the brig!"

"BACK DOWN," Keith snarls.

"What're you going to do to us?"

"You don't even have claws."

"Are you sure you're even Galra?"

"Do not. Touch me. Again." Keith sounds dangerous the same way Acxa does before going in for the kill.

Narti eases herself out of her bed, sliding over on silent feet to stand beside the door. Her body hurts less now, and the idiots outside her door sound like mere children. Trainees; young and territorial and stupid.

A thud and a scuffle has her reaching for the door controls when Patra's voice comes thundering into the melee.

"TRAINEES, GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF INITIATE KOGANE AND GET AWAY FROM MY PATIENT'S DOOR."

A few muted growls meet her words followed up with a hearty thump, "Show some respect," Keith practically spits.

"Yes," Patra growls, "Show some respect. As the only one among you to awaken his Blade OR to have any kind of frontline combat experience, Keith outranks all of you. Respect is the Galra way. I suggest you remind yourselves of that when you're cleaning the waste facilities. Because you will be. Until I decide otherwise. And I'm very forgetful when it comes to stains on the Marmora name so there's a chance you'll be doing it until Zarkon dies of old age. Now get lost and do NOT come back here."

Sullen footsteps shuffle away. Silence stretches to the breaking point in the wake of their exit, broken only when Patra begins to swear. Her tone is even, languid, and deeply disdainful. Her language is almost comedically vivid.

Keith doesn't even try to keep up. There's a violent crack and Narti is sure that's his fist hitting the wall.

Patra wraps up her tirade with a quiet. "Respect is the Galra way."

"Tell that to Zarkon," snarls Keith, "Tell that to _them_."

"Respect is the Galra way _I_ learned and it's the Galra way I'm teaching. Respect your comrades. Respect your enemies. Honor has to mean something."

A quiet, tired exhalation from Keith, "I'm going to check on Narti. She probably heard that."

"She's probably standing by the door, ready to beat down those ignorant yuppers."

Narti's tail curls behind her, pleased.

Keith snorts, "Probably."

...

Keith tries not to check his messages. They just make something deep in his chest twist like a key stick in a rusty lock.

But he's almost human and he's weak.

"Hey, Mullet, hope you're having fun being an alien ninja. We're just here, being awesome. Like always. Um. Red misses you. Just so you know. Ok, bye."

"Muuuuullet. I'm bored. Pidge is gone and I can't beat the boss in this game without herrrrr. But hey, she had a lead on her bro, so that's cool! Ugh. Come back so I have someone to annoy. Red misses you. Ok, bye."

"Hi Keith, it's Shiro, I hope you're doing well. Remember to eat and sleep, buddy. You're doing good work out there, we're all proud of you. See you soon."

"Muuuullet Man, Muuuuullet Man, doooooes whatever a mullet can...which is nothing. Mullets are lame. Hey, is being lactose intolerant an alien thing or a Mullet Man thing, because I'm trying to figure out if our allies can drink milkshakes but I don't want to poison them??? Anyway, Pidge isn't back yet and Hunk is off with Allura and Coran being diplomatic and Shiro had to take a nap after getting swarmed by his alien fangirls, which...dude, no fair. It freaked him out so now he's having a lie-down like an old lady. Anyway. Hope you're having fun stabbing bad guys. Red misses you."

"That's a lie, I totally don't hope you're having fun stabbing bad guys. If you're having fun, you won't come back. And diplomacy's super boring without you being all scowly and menacing. Red misses you. Bye."

"KEITH, MEET MATT!!!! Look, I got my dumb big bro back!!!"

"Uh, hi Keith? I've never met you but these guys say you're cool so, hey? Thanks for looking out for Pidge, dude. Oh yeah, I'm Matt! The original totally awesome Holt sibling."

"Hello there, Keith! Care to send us so videos of you being extra sullen and scowly by chance? Allura needs some references!"

"Hello, Keith, this is Allura, please disregard anything Coran said to you."

"Keith, I think Coran's gone insane. He's having us do fictional shows about our real universe-saving and we all have to play archetypal versions of ourselves (except for Allura, she just has to pretend to be you.) And...I'm not just comic relief, right? I'm not 'Humorous Hunk', I'm like...me. Back me up here, Keith."

"Hey Keith, it's Shiro. We miss you, buddy."

"OH MY GOD, MULLET, I AM HONESTLY NOT SURE WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW OR AT ALL, BUT WE'RE DOING THESE SHOWS AND I THINK CORAN'S ON DRUGS AND PEOPLE LOVE US, BUT IT'S KIND OF FUCKED UP AND ALLURA'S AMAZING, BUT SHE'S GOT NOTHING ON THE REAL YOU AND THERE WAS ICE DANCING, HOLY SHIT. Oh yeah, Red misses you, bye."

Keith looks up the ice dancing videos (because apparently space has a YouTube too) and...he's laughing and then he's crying and he's so glad he's not doing _that_ , whatever that thing on the screen is, but there's a hollow place in his chest that stabbing bad guys doesn't seem to fill.

...

<sad?> Narti's question feels like rain clouds and nameless melancholy. Keith's tired from an undercover mission that unexpectedly went south. Narti is helping check him over for injuries (a fractured collarbone and a back full of bruises) while the rest of his team receives medical aid.

<no>

<lie>

<no>

Communicating with Narti is surreal sometimes. She doesn't use words so much as complex thought-images. If he tried to transcribe it, he thinks he'd come up with a modern art piece or a series of single-word exchanges that didn't mean nearly as much as they should.

<empty> Narti's tail flicks out and thumps him in the chest.

Keith scowls at her and consciously pulls in his thoughts, out of her reach.

Narti presses an image toward him, a vast space, lingering echoes of now-absent music. <empty>

Keith shakes his head. He's not empty, not like she thinks. He's finally found his place, hasn't he? He's wanted a family his whole life, a people to belong to. This is it, isn't it? This is him. He's part Galra. The only thing he's ever been good at is fighting. Just like he's doing now. He used to think he was good at piloting, but he's washed out of the Garrison and washed out of Voltron, so clearly he's the problem.

He belongs here, doesn't he? He wasn't good for Voltron, Red was right to drop him for Lance, just like the Garrison was right to drop him for Lance over a year ago. And he was never right for the Black Lion. He was a stopgap, a trainwreck of a temporary Shiro.

Narti's <STOP> feels like a brain freeze, like the time he was nine years old and one of the kids in his fifth foster home dared him to hold as many ice cubes in his mouth as possible for five minutes. A series of images flicker behind his eyes, strange invasive whispers, a constant building migraine, knowing something is wrong, _knowing_ something isn't right but not being able to stop it. Lotor-Acxa-Ezor-Zethrid, a symphony, a home. Sudden knowledge, sudden understanding as a prince's sword carves into her and everything is finally quiet.

<empty. understand empty>

<sorry>

She shakes her head, shrugs. She sends him an impression of puzzle pieces clicking together, an incomplete picture. Missing pieces.

<friend> she sends a bloom of warmth his way <we are friends>

<less empty> Keith offers.

Patra interrupts, "We have counselors if you need therapy, you know. If you want to pretend you're fine, you might want to leave my infirmary."

Keith wonders how Patra got to be so smart.

...

Patra has recordings she plays on loop on her computer when she wants to drink herself into oblivion. Narti hears them once or twice. Tinny voices diluted by technology and low volume. A younger Patra’s voice without the laconic drawl. Closer to Ezor's bright soprano personality, Narti thinks. (She slips into music when she can't make the words work - Axca was raspy alto tones, Zethrid a thundering bass, Lotor an authoritative treble, Ezor a soaring soprano - Keith is a rumbling, electronic hum.)

The recording must be a video. There's another voice.

"Ptol," Patra explains, voice flat, "he was...precious to me."

Narti does not ask what happened. Narti was a general in Zarkon's army. Narti came of age in war.

She knows the weight of a heavy 'was'.

...

Keith knows about Ptol. He knows because Patra has given him a side-eyed stare and said "Have you ever considered calling them back?" when she's overheard him replaying the messages they leave for him over and over.

"At least put the blue one out of his misery."

Keith pretends not to know what she means.

He misses Lance. Misses the stupid jokes and the dumb grin that comes with them. Misses a voice in his ear reminding him to take a breath and reconsider. Misses stability and common sense and someone to tell him no when he's gone too far and someone to follow him off the edge of the cliff anyway.

He doesn't call back, though. Maybe Lance has finally gotten through his thick head the fundamental truth Keith knew when Black dragged him kicking and screaming into a leadership position and he had to hand over the red bayard.

Lance's ridiculous boasts were right all along. He is better than Keith.

…

Narti likes puzzles. Keith had found a simple game made out of pieces of metal that slid and clicked together. One of those manual logic puzzles where you have to make one shape into another or extract one piece from the nest of other pieces. They have things like this on Earth and he used to love them. They gave him something to do with his hands, something to pour all his focus into when he needed a break from the world.

He brought the little one to Narti and she was immediately entranced.

She solved it in a day.

Now they've got a larger one - it reminds Keith a little of Jenga back on earth, and they play with it together in moments of quiet. Patra will watch them sometimes but she gets bored easily and doesn't want to play.

It's the kind that can be a bunch of different puzzles in a single form and Keith and Narti are working their way through all the options. It helps clear Keith's head, searching for the picture, trying to see the way things all fit together.

Narti likes the feel of the pieces in her hands; she likes the fact that in her dark world she can still 'see' this.

They do puzzles together in quiet moments.

…

            Speeding toward a shielded Galra cruiser after Naxzela - Olia and Coran and Matt Holt loud in his ears, Keith finds himself thinking about puzzles, about pieces clicking together. Over the fear and fury and the knowledge that this is the only way and this is for the greater good and at least this way he’ll mean something at the end of the day, he finds himself thinking of Narti’s puzzles. He wonders if he’s the piece trapped in the middle of the other pieces or if he’s the last piece, the one that doesn’t quite fit and throws the whole thing off. When that happens you have to start all over again, solve the puzzle different, solve the puzzle better this time, make the loner piece fit. He wishes he could have kept working in the puzzle. He wishes he could have gotten to the stage where that last piece fit.

            He’s speeding toward a shielded Galra cruiser and either he’s about to die or a dozen planets and all his friends are about to die and he’s thinking about puzzles and Voltron and the Blade and Narti’s music in his head and Lance calling him Mullet across the void of space and time.

            He wishes he could apologize to Patra of all things, for making her care.

…

            And then Keith doesn’t die. And a dozen planets don’t die. And all his friends don’t die.

            Instead, it’s Lotor who saves the day and Keith doesn’t know what to think about that but he does know what he’s going to do.

…

            In the Castle’s hanger, rebel ships docking one by one in the wake of the battle, Keith searches the crowd for long platinum hair and a regal bearing. Lotor isn’t hard to miss, the rest of the Voltron Coalition is fixated on him, clumps of people drawn up around him but never touching him, still keeping a distance, like iron filings suspended inches from a magnet.

            Keith has no qualms about shoving through the crowd, gaze centered on the smug tilt of that fair head, the little flourish as he lifts his hands in a mockery of an ‘I-surrender’. A susurrating murmur rolls through the gathered fighters in his wake, but no one stops him.

            “Oh, are you the official welcoming party?” Lotor drawls at him as Keith approaches, breaking through the invisible boundary between Galran prince and freedom fighters.

            Keith doesn’t bother to answer, just hauls off and punches Prince Lotor in the face.

            Lotor, clearly unprepared for bare-knuckle assault, staggers backward, composure cracked for just a moment, hands flickering up to finger his nose. A small drop of blood beads at one nostril and he blinks at it as if surprised he can bleed. His eyes cut up again and Keith can see the moment Lotor recognizes him.

            “You’re the little fighter who was all ready to go out in a blaze of glory? Charging the barrier like that, tsk, tsk. Not a very well thought out plan, was it?”

            Keith stares at him impassively, “The first punch was for a friend, but I can hit you on my behalf if you want?”

            (His composure is a fragile thing, barely held together at the seams, his hands want to shake, he wants to find a dark corner and throw up, he almost _died_ , he’s in shock, he’s hot and he’s cold and he’s hungry and he never wants to eat again, he wants to hand onto to someone living, someone breathing and never ever let go because he was going to die and then he wasn’t.)

            But Keith keeps it together just to stare down Lotor, the man who gut Narti like a fish and left her to bleed out.

            “More vicarious violence?” Lotor mutters to himself, mostly under his breath, wry and self-deprecating with a thin thread of regret and maybe pain, he raises his eyes and his tone, “Dare I ask whom?”

            “No,” Keith says heavily.

            “No thank you for saving your life, just punches on other people’s behalf? However did you lot get so noble?”

            Keith snorts, “I’ve never been noble. You just don’t remember the Galra way.”

            “Victory or death? Believe me, I’m aware.”

            “Honor. Respect. Loyalty.”

            “I hardly feel honored or respected.”

            Keith snorts, “I’m confronting you as an equal instead of stabbing you in the back later.”

            “I am truly blessed.”

            “Yeah.” Keith turns and goes to walk away, aware of the susurrating murmur of voices behind him, mostly strangers, mostly good people, he’s sure, just good people whose opinions he doesn’t really give a damn about at the moment.

            “You’re not the first,” Lotor says to his retreating back. He sounds…perturbed, thoughtful.

            Keith stops and tilts his head curiously but doesn’t say anything.

            “You’re not the first in the last few days to strike a blow at me on someone else’s behalf.”

            “Did you deserve it?” Keith asks.

            Lotor hesitates, “That remains to be seen.”

            “Okay,” Keith says because his vision is swimming as shock comes crashing down on him all at once, “Good luck with that. Hope your nose is broken.”

            _For Narti_ , he thinks as he walks off.

…

            _“For Narti,”_ Acxa had said before drawing her weapon on him. Lotor hadn’t seen it coming. He’d always prided himself on his forethought and yet…he’d never seen it coming.

            He hopes she survived, that he managed to cut out Haggar without having to cut down Narti forever.

            The idiot cub was right. Honor, respect and loyalty were the Galra way.

            He supposes if he failed her he did deserve whatever Acxa and foolhardy young pilots decided to dish out. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, doubt. Worry. Fear. Not comfortable in the least.

            _“For Narti”_ he thinks wryly as he dabs at the blood dripping from his sore nose.

…

            All Keith wants is to find a dark corner to have a breakdown in but instead he finds Patra. Or Patra finds him. She’s bristling all over, her ears twitching at the tips, coarse purple fur ruffled as her dark orange-gold eyes flare with fury. When he spots her she’s speaking with Coran – more like growling in Coran’s general direction, the Altean advisor looking grave and grim. Shiro is approaching, head tipped forward and even though he’s too far away and wearing a helmet, Keith is sure his brow is furrowed in that way it does when he’s concerned.

            But she must have heard or smelled or spotted Keith out of the corner of her eye because she’s turning toward him before his rattled brain can tell him to get the hell away from here, and then she’s approaching like a heat-seeking missile. By the time she’s grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and shaking him, he’s just gone limp.

            At first it’s just a flurry of rapid-fire Galra either so profane or so fast and furious his translator can’t keep up and then - “You don’t get to do that, understand?” she snarls, stopping shaking him but not loosening her grip, “You don’t get to make me care again and then go and die like that. You understand me?”

            “That’s what I was thinking,” he mutters.

            “What, cub?” she growls.

            “About them,” he hooks his chin toward Team Voltron, whose faces are a mix of confusion and concern as one by one they spot Keith and Patra. “And Narti, and you. And even Kolivan. I wasn’t going to just let them… _die._ They made me care. About them. About saving the universe. They’re…that’s…more important than me.”

            <wrong> a tail tip poking his cheek. He turns and sees Narti, dressed in full Marmora armor, her mask hiding her face but the shape of his friend still recognizable, <you are universe>. She pushes a rapid-fire barrage of images at him. A universe made of individuals, of people like him and her and Patra and Team Voltron.

            “Yeah, but – ” Keith struggles to protest.

            <you are part of it> He’s part of Narti’s version of the universe.

            “I don’t know what she’s telling you,” Patra says, “but if their lives,” she gestures at the hanger, at all the people crowded within, “have meaning, then yours does too.”

            “The Galra way is honor. Honor means sacrifice.”

            “Only when there is no other choice. You think there’s some kind of infinite supply of Blades? Or Paladins? There’s only six of you, that’s basically a scarcity.”

            “Five lions,” Keith points out.

            “We’ve only got one medical suite at the base but somehow that means they need more than one medical officer on deck,” Patra drawls and it’s gentler than Lotor, less razor-edged, “Don’t know why they think that, I’m a menace.”

            Narti’s tail tip touches his shoulder briefly, not trying to convey any thoughts, simply dragging his attention back to Team Voltron, who’ve finished conferring with Coran and are now staring at hin with stricken looks on their faces.

            “Keith,” Shiro’s voice is stricken, “We – ”

            “WE MISS YOU, YOU QUIZNACK,” Pidge yelps, jumping forward and punching him in the shoulder and wrapping him in a hug.

            “You’re important, buddy,” Hunk seconds, wrapping them both up in his arms.

            “We need to have a serious conversation, Keith, I – ” Shiro struggles with words and Patra, sighing as if the antics of children were far beneath he pay grade, herds him into the group hug as well.

            “Talk later, when you’re better at it,” she suggests laconically.

            “Keith – ” Lance sounds a little teary and looks a lot lost.

            “Do you want to hug me too?” Keith asks, and hey, those are tears running down his face, honest-to-god tears and he’s shaking because he almost _died_ , but he’s warm in the middle of this person sandwich and god he missed all of them and yes, he wants Lance to hug him.

            “Well I certainly do!” Coran interrupts with a flourish and suddenly he and the princess are part of this mess too and there are too many limbs and with all their armor on this is incredibly uncomfortable but Keith doesn’t really care nearly as much as he probably should.

            And somehow Lance slips into and through all of this and Keith is suddenly nose to nose with him, blinking dumbly into blue eyes as Keith’s own fill with even more tears.

            “Hey, boss” Lance smiles crookedly, “It’s your right-hand man.”

            “You’re both dumb quiznacks,” Pidge mutters at them, “Hug or go home, Lance.”

            “I don’t think you’re using that word correctly,” they tell her simultaneously.

            Lance blinks, having surprised himself and sighs, dropping his forehead onto Keith’s armored shoulder, which can’t be comfortable. “We missed you, Mullet. Can you tell?”

            “Yeah,” Keith’s mouth twitches at the corners, “Maybe a little.”

            “Maybe a lot. We’ll tell you about it after we stop thank-god-we-didn’t-die hugging and you introduce us to your lady friends.”

            Narti’s tail pokes Keith in the cheek, <pieces, puzzle pieces>

            Keith’s still feeling all his pieces rattling around in his chest, sharp and jagged and out of place. And nothing’s fixed, nothing’s resolved, but it could be. And that’s enough for now.

            They still have all the pieces. The puzzle can still be solved.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I might write a follow-up to this story because no, nothing is necessarily fixed and Keith still has serious issues that need to be addressed in terms of self-concept and mental health. Additionally, Narti is still re-learning how to move through the world without Lotor and Kova. But I wanted to end this on a hopeful note capitalizing on the potential for healing to happen at a later time. 
> 
> Fic title comes from mythology. Icarus was the boy who famously escaped a prison with man-made wings, but burned up when he flew too close to the sun (sound like Keith to anyone else...?). Dea Tacita is a little-known silent Roman goddess of death and the fear of being forgotten (Narti, anyone?). 'Icarus et Dea Tacita' means 'Icarus and Dea Tacita' in Latin.


End file.
